


The Ladder Broke

by OhRiena



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Male-Female Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-12-29 16:08:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12088557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OhRiena/pseuds/OhRiena
Summary: Life isn’t always predictable, nor is it usually ever kind. The one blessing it bestowed upon me was a friend that I could confide in, could believe in, could trust, but even the good things were sometimes meant to be broken and torn apart, as I would quickly learn.





	The Ladder Broke

I’ve heard it said, that everyone has one person they consider their best friend for life. They say nothing can separate them--not oceans, wars, heartbreak, nothing. Some people even go so far as to say they’re soulmates. You see, a soulmate doesn’t have to be someone you’re romantically in love with. It can be a sibling, another family member, a friend. It’s someone who reaches out and touches your heart so deeply, you could never forget them, and somehow, you’re always drawn back to one another. I used to believe this, but recently, I’m not so sure.

We were six when my father finished building the tree-house in my backyard. It wasn’t luxurious, by any means, but for two six year old children, it was a castle, an impenetrable fortress that we protected at all costs. We hung curtains from the holey purple fabric my mother wanted to throw out, we drew pictures of unicorns and dragons and hung them on the walls. They were priceless pieces of artwork, and rich, thick velvety shields to keep out the sun and prying eyes. Everything in the wooden hut between the branches was worth thousands in our eyes.

It was a hot summer day, and like most children, we were seeking shelter from the scorching sun. Naturally, our hide out in the shade was an ideal location. Everything was fine until the sun began to dip behind the rooftops, and our mothers’ voices rang across the yards, urging us to return home for the evening. Like usual, Yixing and I embraced and promised we would return to protect our kingdom the following morning--he would bring the lemonade and I would bring the strawberries from my mother’s garden.

He watched as I began to descend the ladder, one rung at a time. Halfway down, my foot pressed into the wood, only to be met with a crack. Everything fell out from beneath me. I flew through the air until my body met the ground with another deafening crack and a shrill cry of pain. The ladder broke. Even through the searing ache, I could hear the thud of Yixing jumping from the platform above to the ground before his face crawled into my spotty sight. I could feel his arms around me as he gently tried to lure me toward his body. He whispered, “are you okay?” Too in pain to answer, the last thing I remembered hearing was his tiny, usually quiet voice screaming for help and the sounds of feet running to us.

Obviously I lived. It was just a broken arm, but unable to stand much more of the pain, I’d blacked out before my dad arrived. I spent the next few days, watching my father and best friend repair the ladder together. It was much stronger and sturdier than before, and Yixing assured me he wouldn’t let me fall again. If it hadn’t been for his determined words, I probably never would have climbed back into our home away from home, and that would have been a shame.

* * *

 

Thirteen years old was too young. They all shot me pitying looks and aunts who I hadn’t seen or spoken to in years tugged me into hugs and pressed kisses to my cheeks. My mother sobbed by the window that was streaked with tears from the heavens, While I simply hung my head in the backroom, desperate for escape. The moment I saw the opportunity, I took it.

I paid no attention to the rain as it poured from the sky, hiding the tears that had started to snake down my cheeks. I stood before the ladder that had been repaired some years ago--the summer I had fallen and broke my arm. The wood was beginning to rot away, making it weak and fragile. Something in my heart ignited and without realizing my actions, I took to the first step and began jumping as hard as I could until the wood splintered. I followed through with the next, using one foot while the other rested safely above. I continued demolishing half the ladder until my feet ached and my legs could take no more, and I climbed the rest. I didn’t want anyone to find me. I wanted to make sure no one could get to me and with the state I’d left the ladder in, I was sure I had succeeded.

With my face buried in my sopping wet knees, I didn’t hear him come in. He was quiet, like usual, slipping in beside me and draping his wet coat over my shoulders for warmth. He said nothing, and I didn’t move. We sat together in utter silence, nothing but the rain singing its sad song on the roof while I finally broke down.

“Why did he have to die? Why couldn’t he have stayed home? If he’d just stayed home he would still be here!” I wailed as Yixing took me into his arms and held me tightly. My shoulders shook and my thin fingers grasped onto his shirt as his hands brushed against the tangles of my hair. “Why did he have to leave me, Yixing?”

His hold on me tightened and I could feel his chest rise and fall in a sigh. “I don’t know why. I wish I could bring him back for you, but I promise I won’t leave you. I’ll be here with you forever.” It was a childish promise, one made in a moment of desperation to bring comfort. No thirteen year old child could possibly make such promises and keep them, but at the time, I believed it. At the time, I mended the cracks in my heart like glue, holding them together for the time being.

We sat in silence for some time longer before I finally dried up and pulled away. Agreeing we should return to our families, we stepped onto the platform and looked to the ground. My eyes immediately spotted the destruction I’d left in my angry, heartbroken path.

“The ladder broke,” Yixing pointed out.

“It’s my fault. I broke it myself.”

I regretted the words almost immediately as they brought on questions of concern. He checked my feet and legs, examined my arms and head. Only when he was certain I wasn’t hurt did he seem satisfied enough to form a plan.

“I’ll go down first, and make sure you get down okay. We can fix the ladder in a few days.”

And we did.

* * *

 

I’ll never forget the evening he made me a second promise. I was sixteen, pinned up in a corner of the house, dabbing my eyes with a handkerchief and throwing darts at a hand drawn poster of my recent ex-boyfriend. The house was different now. The curtains had long ago been replaced by ones without holes. Two years ago, we’d installed shelves near the roof to store photographs and collectibles. Our dragons and unicorns had been stored away in a box, and were replaced by posters of our favorite bands and a calendar of bunnies on which we marked off the days until summer religiously.

The dart corner had been a recent addition, a place where we would take out our teenage angst on our parents, bullies at school, neighbors who got angry any time we stayed out past dark and played our music loudly with no regrets. It’d been a week since my boyfriend of one year and I had broken up and I still wasn’t over his cheating ways. Every dart I flung at the wall sunk deeper into the wood, and each time they left a hole somewhere new in his black crayon drawn face.

“You’re still on about that guy?” Yixing murmured from inside the doorway.

As usual, his stealthy, quiet nature took me by surprise and sent a scolding yell from my lips. “Can’t you introduce yourself when you get here? Make some noise? Stomp up the ladder? Bang around outside?” After all, I did have darts in my hand and it was getting dark outside!"

A goofy, familiar laugh trickled from his lips as he slid over beside me and took a few of the darts from my hand, using them to practice his aim. With each point that met the page, he spoke soft, but serious words.

“I think… I think you should move on already. He’s stupid if he couldn’t see how lucky he was to have you. Besides, there are other people who like you too, you know…”

His hands emptied of the darts but neither of us moved to retrieve them. Instead, my gaze turned from our target to him as my brows furrowed deeply in confusion.

“Psh, yeah okay. Like who?”

Stifling silence fell over the tree-house and I thought for a moment that maybe I shouldn’t have asked, but the moment that followed answered everything I needed to know.

“Like… me,” he whispered. There was little hesitation between the end of his statement and the moment he pressed our lips gently together. He was sweet, like the strawberries and lemonade we consumed on the hot summer days, and comforting like the warmth he’d given me the day of my father’s funeral. Nothing about it felt wrong, and my heart screamed with sweet joy. I had never considered Yixing more than friend, but never before had he really given me any indication that he saw me as a woman until now.

When it ended and our lips were finally reunited with the cold air, my heart still beat furiously against the prison cell of my rib cage, begging to be returned to the place where it belonged. As if by some force of magic, I completely forgot what I had been angry about, and instead, I found myself thankful that it’d come to this.

“I… I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but let’s make a promise, yeah?” Unsure of what this promise would entail, I hesitantly nodded my head and listened. “Let’s promise to meet here every year on this day, no matter what.”

If only I could have seen the future when I agreed to the promise.

Not long after, we climbed down the ladder and embraced, only parting when we heard the ever familiar crack of wood and watched as the ladder fell apart.

“The ladder broke… again,” I muttered in slight agitation.

“It’s okay. We’ll fix it together. We always do.”

* * *

 

Life isn’t always predictable, nor is it usually ever kind. The one blessing it bestowed upon me was a friend that I could confide in, could believe in, could trust, but even the good things were sometimes meant to be broken and torn apart, as I would quickly learn. He didn’t have the heart to tell me in person that he’d auditioned with a company and been accepted into the training program. You can surely imagine my surprise when I was delivered the letter from his mother a few days after he left. At the very end, he urged me to hold to our promise and that he would too, but something told me it would be impossible.

And it was.

Each year I would climb the familiar ladder to the tree-house, and each year the day would come and go. For the first couple, I even waited a few days before and after, just in case he had to adjust, but he never came. He started to write me when I didn’t respond to his texts, but I could never bring myself to rip open the envelopes. I felt betrayed, and lonely. He’d always been there for me through thick and thin, yet he wasn’t now. I knew I should have returned the favor. I should have cheered for him and wished him the best, and knowing that made me hate myself that much more.

I stuck to it, though. Every year I waited, but as the years went by, the wood of the house began to rot, the curtains became moth eaten and the drawing of my ex-boyfriend from years before yellowed and began to tear away. I eventually stopped going into the house and simply hung my legs over the ledge for a few hours before giving up. I watched from afar as Yixing made his debut and took off successfully. I smiled when I saw his face, and I silently said a prayer of well wishes for him, but my heart secretly ached.

Two years ago, my mother decided it was time to downgrade. I loaded up all my belongings and retreated to the tree-house for what I thought would be the last time. I cleaned it out, hunched over to sweep out all the debris that had gathered on the floor through the seasons, and prepared it for the little boy and girl that were moving in behind us. Their father promised that together, they would fix the old thing up and make it new again, sending painful memories of my childhood through my heart. With the last of the tree-house collection in my arms, I took what I thought would be my final look at the place.

I could see our ghostly images at the window, wearing our paper crowns and using our paper telescopes to check on our vast kingdom. I saw Yixing putting flowers in my hair as we swept and dusted in the spring. I could see the rain pattering on the small porch just outside the door and Yixing’s jacket over my crumpled up body as I mourned my father’s death. But, more vividly than anything else, I could still feel the sweetness of the kiss we’d shared after all the anger I’d built up in my heart. Perhaps it was a good thing this was happening. Perhaps I’d been holding on too long to painful memories that were simply that, events of the past. It was time for me to move on.

One last time, I descended the ladder, and one last time, I heard the snapping of wood as the ladder broke. This time, though, it wasn’t my concern. This time, Yixing and I wouldn’t team up with our tools to repair it. It was time for someone else to take over the kingdom and the castle within it. I turned my back on the old tree and walked away for what I thought would be the last time ever.

* * *

 

The cold weather was what brought me into the café near my childhood home that afternoon. My cheeks and nose were bitten red by the nippy wind, and my whole body shook with chills. I’d sat around for a bit, trying to ignore the urging in my heart to just walk by. Walk by the house, peek in the yard, look at the old tree-house, it ached. I didn’t want to. Over the last two years, I’d learned to close myself off to my feelings and focus on work. It was hard being a successful graphics designer in a day and age when many people had access to the programs, but I was getting there.

It’d been my day off, however, and I’d been feeling nostalgic for my old neighborhood, and the cup of coffee I used to get each day on my way home from school. It was no wonder my body was telling me to finish the routine as I had done so often.

Curiosity eventually got the best of me, and with warmth in my body, I braved the cold once more and walked to my old home. I was considerate enough to at least stop in and ask if I could peek at the tree-house, but was even more surprised when the lady of the house handed me a few envelopes with my name on them. I didn’t have to open them to know who they were from. I could never forget that familiar handwriting, even if I tried. With a thanks, I stuffed them away in my bag and walked quietly to the back, staring up at the tree.

It was different than when I had left it, but that was to be expected. The wood was new and sparkled in the winter sun, and the rungs of the ladder were thick and looked sturdy. I could vaguely make out footprints from the children running up and down them, and a smile stretched my lips.

“It looks good, yeah?” a voice called out from behind me.

I nodded and turned to look in the direction, surprised to see Yixing standing there with a kind smile on his face. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t kept up with him, but I’ll be damned if he didn’t look even better in person than he had in the photographs.

The distance between us closed in as he approached me and hesitated for a moment, scratching the back of his head, almost unsure of himself. This time, I didn’t wait for him. I flung my arms around his neck and pulled him into a hug, cherishing the warmth that still seemed so familiar and the arms that still fit so perfectly around me after all these years. Nothing needed to be said as we embraced one another and let our hearts do the talking. And for once, the ladder didn’t break.


End file.
